Starship at the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas
Courtesy SpaceX
Aspiring astronauts, space experience not necessary, are being invited by Yusaku Maezawa, founder of Japanese online fashion company Zozotown, to apply for one of eight seats on the first civilian lunar flight – on his dime. The journey, named dearMoon and planned for 2023 on SpaceX's Starship rocket, may go farther than the Apollo missions. According to CNBC, to qualify, prospective passengers must be able to advance whatever...
One of the most popular children’s books on library shelves “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” and five other books authored by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) will no longer be published. Dr. Seuss Enterprises L.P. (DSE), which handles the iconic author's publishing and business affairs, made the announcement stating the books contain racist and insensitive imagery. DSE told Associated Press it had made the decision based on input from...
As semiconductor makers go all out to make up for a supply shortfall, companies that build equipment to produce the chips are cashing in. Equipment manufacturers such as Applied Materials Inc., Brooks Automation Inc., Lam Research Corp., and KLA Corp. have watched their share value spike this year. As BNN Bloomberg reports, that equipment will be needed for planned multibillion-dollar factories.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/chip-machinery-makers-emerge-as-biggest-winners-in-supply-crunch-1.1571007
Artist Beeple's ‘Everydays – The First 5000 Days’ NFT Artwork
Courtesy Christie's Auction House
Art, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. Apparently, that applies to video files. Take, for instance, the 10-second video artwork purchased by a Miami art collector for $67,000 in October 2020. This past week, he cashed in on his investment, selling it for a tidy $6.6 million. The video is considered an NFT or non-fungible token, meaning it...
Photo Courtesy Reuters
After China announced on Friday the suspension of pineapple imports from Taiwan, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen took to Facebook to tell his citizens, "To support the farmers, let’s eat pineapples all together!” According to a Reuters report, China claims that Taiwan's pineapple shipments could result in "harmful creatures" being released, posing a threat to the Chinese agricultural sector.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-china-pineapple/forbidden-fruit-taiwan-urges-people-to-eat-more-pineapples-after-china-ban-idUSKBN2AQ1F0
The EC plans to submit what could be controversial legislation to members of the European Union - implementing what it calls "digital green pass". The EC, which is the executive branch of the EU, says the pass would help Europeans to move safely throughout Europe for work or tourism. The pass would verify whether an individual has been vaccinated for COVID-19 or the status of COVID tests for those individuals. As Reuters notes, it's...
Not long after announcing its entry in the fintech sector, Walmart has reportedly hired two of Goldman Sachs' senior executives, Omer Ismail and David Stark, to head its online banking arm. The recruiting coup would be the latest in a series of developments that has the established players worried about corporate behemoths leaning on their huge customer bases to eat into the banking wallet, according to a BNN Bloomberg report.
From <https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/with-goldman-hires-mcmillon-moves-closer-to-bank-of-walmart-1.1570100>
Photo courtesy The Washington Post
Posting that perfect shot of yourself getting vaccinated on social media might garner a bunch of likes and comments, but it is also likely to generate plenty of ill will. Meryl Kornfield's piece in The Washington Post injects spirited debate into the issue and may help move the needle regarding public perception.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/27/vaccine-selfies/
Bitcoin's meteoric rise in popularity and value has not impressed Bill Gates as much as it has Elon Musk. "My general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,” Gates said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. With Musk's financial worth pegged at US189.6 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, that warning is directed at quite a few of us.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/it-s-gates-versus-musk-as-world-s-richest-spar-over-bitcoin-1.1568557
While private space companies including Elon Musk's SpaceX steal headlines with the introduction of civilian space travel, NASA still has a world of opportunity in the new Space Age. "The solar system is a big place," Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight, said in a Washington Post article. "We at NASA should always be doing the next thing, the thing where the profit motive is not as evident and where the barriers to entry are still...
